UNITED NATIONS, Oct 22 (NNN-XINHUA) – The international community should step up efforts to promote women’s participation in conflict-prevention and peacebuilding, United Nations Deputy Secretary-General, Amina Mohammed, said.
The participation of women at all levels “has played a pivotal role in changing the way we approach peace and security, over the last 20 years,” Amina told a UN Security Council open debate on the theme of “Strengthening Women’s Resilience and Leadership as a Path to Peace in Regions Plagued by Armed Groups.”
“When we open the door to inclusion and participation, we take a giant step forward in conflict-prevention and peacebuilding,” she said.
Despite decades of evidence that gender equality offers a path to sustainable peace and conflict prevention, “we are moving in the opposite direction,” she said, noting that, “progress has been slow.”
Between 1995 and 2019, women constituted on average just 13 percent of negotiators, six percent of mediators and six percent of signatories in major peace processes, Amina said.
Women’s participation in peace processes, and influence over decisions that affect their lives, continue to lag far behind, creating a real barrier to inclusive, durable, and sustainable peace.
The UN deputy chief called for dismantling patriarchal norms, that exclude women from power, putting forward more women mediators and negotiators, as well as, securing greater and more predictable financing for women peacebuilders at the frontline.
“We need full gender parity – including through special quotas to accelerate the inclusion of women – across election monitoring, security sector reform, disarmament, demobilisation, and justice systems,” she concluded.– NNN-XINHUA